Federal File

Pig-picking

Look out--"Porky the Pork-Barreling Pig" has his snout trained on a
few would-be federal education expenditures.

Sen. John McCain launched Porky onto the Internet last month to
point out items the Arizona Republican considers questionable in the
Senate's fiscal 1998 spending bill, now under consideration by a
House-Senate conference committee. The list includes items from a range
of departments whose authorization laws have expired, specific
earmarked dollars for a member's district, or items added to a spending
bill to circumvent the normal budget-writing process.

On Sen. McCain's World Wide Web site, www.senate.gov/~mccain, Porky
shuffles across the bottom of the page, with a banner tied to his tail,
rolling a barrel of money with his nose.

Porky's picks include a proposed $500,000 grant for research on
technology used by children with disabilities that the Senate
Appropriations Committee reports the University of Northern Iowa would
be best suited to perform.

Sen. McCain also targets several proposed allocations to Hawaii,
including $500,000 for the Native Hawaiian Education Council and
language urging the U.S. Department of Education to use $500,000 for
aquaculture education workshops for high school students and
teachers.

Greg Knudsen, a spokesman for the Hawaii Department of Education,
said those programs "reflect unique characteristics of the state that
some members of Congress might not understand."

For instance, aquaculture, which is the study of ocean resources, is
a promising field relevant to the state's economic future, Mr. Knudsen
added.

Sen. McCain also questions a proposed $326,000 allotment to the
Central Montana Head Start Program to secure donations of surplus
property, as well as language in an accompanying Senate Appropriations
Committee report that requests better funding for the Centennial school
district in Warminster, Pa.